Rated: TV-14
Director: Dominique Rocher
Another film with a brilliant-sounding premise, The Night Eats the World opens at a big party in a Paris apartment, where loner Sam (Anders Danielsen Lie) has shown up to get back the box of his stuff that his ex-girlfriend (it's her and her new man's party) accidentally took with her when she moved out. The apartment is packed and the girlfriend keeps putting him off, and when Sam accidentally gets struck by a raucous party guest he gives up and retreats to the small private room in the back of the house, shutting the door so anything can barely be heard, to get away from the noise and crowd and nurse his bloody nose. Before long, Sam is asleep in an armchair opposite the door. He remains asleep hours later, even when the mute music turns to muted screams ... but the next morning wakes up to find the apartment empty and trashed, blood on the walls. He finally locates his ex sitting with someone on the steps outside, but when he speaks to her, her head jerks around toward him to reveal half her face eaten away, and Sam slams and locks the door just as she reaches it, barely saving his own life. Paris has suddenly gone quiet, bodies and abandoned cars and the undead filling the streets, and over the days and weeks of being holed up alone, Sam wonders if he might just be the last human alive. A great survivalist film, of sorts, and decent zombie flick with some jump-worthy moments and plenty of gore, but with Sam being virtually the only speaking character in the film you have to really be engaged with him - rooting for him - for the film to work, and I only found myself about 70% there (especially toward the end, when Sam did some really stupid stuff that just got on my nerves - though, in retrospect, I can see why he did them). The film mines for more depth in its second half (generally succeeding), and has an ending some might consider open to interpretation - but if it's still got me thinking about it a couple weeks after seeing it, I guess that says something about the impression the film had on me, either way. 7/10 stars
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